I'm using the KL and CUM yeasts to deacidify the surface and set the stage for the geo to come in. I'm looking for a rumply, brainy appearance with as little other mold growth as possible.

Sometimes the geo rind comes in beautifully by day 10 and I can wrap and move them to cold storage before any blue or gray starts to grow. Other times, though, the mucor starts in before the geo can really take off and by the time the rumply rind is in, I have unsightly gray/black smudges from patting down the mucor.

The attached photo shows cheeses started on 5/13 (ladled 5/14; into aging 5/17). As you can see, the geo isn't fully in yet and I have a bunch of mucor growing. I patted these down yesterday and this patch sprang back up overnight.

Is there anything I can change to speed up my geo growth and slow down / eliminate the mucor growth? I am aging these in a floral refrigerator with hanging wet towels to keep up humidity. As such, I have precise control over aging temp, but less over the humidity.

Any thoughts on the use of KL and CUM to control mucor and encourage geo? It seemed to work last season, but not so well this season.

Hi Iain, you don't list your location.......easier to make recommendations when I have a sense of your climate. My first wondering is if the humidity is too high. I seem to have luck ripening in a box that let's me adjust the lid to control airflow. There are more experienced folks than I here so hopefully someone will chime in. I'm not familiar with KL or CUM. I just use a PC and Geo for bloomy cultures. If I was having trouble with Mucor I'd use PC SAM which is Mucor resistant. Good luck!

I'm in south-western PA - just outside Pittsburgh. I have these cheeses aging in a floral refrigerator with a wet towel hanging in the front. That keeps RH at about 92, though it occasionally does creep up to 95. More often, though, it swings lower than higher, if that makes sense.

I'm not using any PC. I wonder if there are any mucor-resistant Geos with the yeasty, rumply effect.